Use of online searching as a means to locate desired information has significantly increased in recent years to become one of the most prevalent systems for locating information in use today. Generally, search engines utilize keyword matching to locate information containing identical and/or similar keywords to a search query input by a user. While keyword matching has its advantages over more generic search methods, a significant number of items are often returned in response to a search query, many of which are not related to the core topic intended by the user.
Advancements in keyword search have more recently been directed toward mining search-related data in an attempt to enhance a user's search experience. For instance, suppose a user initiates a search containing the keywords “photographs and editing.” In response thereto, a plurality of items is returned to the user, each containing and/or relating to the input keyword. A more advanced search engine may also return information based on search-related data mining such as, “Users who searched ‘photographs and editing’ also searched the keyword ‘cropping’”, or “The most popular selections by users who searched the keywords ‘photographs and editing’ are . . . ”, and the like. While such suggestions provide the user with an enhanced user experience relative to a search engine that returns basic keyword results and nothing further, the user experience may still suffer from a lack of relevance.
For example, suppose the user initiating the above search isn't interested in consumer photograph editing but rather in editing using commercial photography equipment. Being presented with a list of keywords or sites utilized by others who also searched the keywords “photographs and editing” will likely more often return selections relevant to consumer photograph editing as it is more likely that a greater number of users are interested in editing photographs on their personal computer than in editing using commercial photography equipment. Accordingly, the data mining information returned in this instance is still not related to the core topic of interest to the user.
Additionally, information returned as a result of the above search, while presenting information relevant to the user's interest as evidenced by the search query content, may not actually be relevant to the user. That is, suppose that the user is a Macintosh user and desires to edit photographs. Search results returned in response to the keywords “photographs and editing,” even if related to consumer photograph editing instead of editing using commercial photography equipment, are unlikely to be related to editing photographs using a Macintosh computer or, to the extent a search result is relevant to Macintosh consumer photograph editing, all results have to be perused by the user to identify the particular relevant result.